Saturday, 26 September 2015

Telegraph
The balance of hope and fear, however, has changed. The great moral
advantage for the pro-Europeans 40 years ago was that they represented
hope, whereas the No campaign drew on fear. It felt like the 21st
century versus 1940. The future defeated the past.
Now that we live in the 21st century, the shocks of the euro and mass migration
and the marked decline of European world competitiveness, have ensured
that the EU does not feel like the future any more. The argument for
British membership is now almost wholly a status quo one – that getting
out is too risky. No sane British pro-European publicly campaigns for
much more Europe (although that is what many of them privately want):
that side has lost its visionary power.
If it gets it right, the
“Leave” campaign can annex both hope and fear – hope that we could be
freer to govern ourselves and freer actors in the wider world where the
global future is actually being decided; fear that if we stay in we
shall be more regulated, more dragged into the deeper Euro-project and
more vulnerable to uncontrollable immigration.
Add the fact that
voters are much less respectful and more insurgent than they were in
1975, and a Crosby-ish calculation of the outcome becomes much narrower
now than then. Recent polls tend to bear this out. The pull of
aspiration among the undecided is away from the EU, while that of
security is still for remaining. A typical formulation of such a voter
might be “I want my country back, but not if it means I lose my job”.

Friday, 25 September 2015

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)......to do the first ever evaluation of the tailpipe emissions of diesel cars in America made by European manufacturers.
They tested three cars: a BMW X5, Volkswagen Jetta and Volkswagen
Passat, while travelling over 2400kms on each car to get their results.
After driving from Los Angeles to Seattle and back they noticed
something odd about their Passat. Going by Volkswagen’s claims, it
should easily have let out the least amount of pollution between those
three cars — it had a more modern catalytic reduction system which is
meant to convert toxic fumes into safer ones — but that wasn’t the case.
The nitrogen oxide that came out of the Passat was in fact 20 times
more than the baseline levels permitted by the California Air Resources
Board.
The team was puzzled. There was no way it could be wrong. They
triple-checked the accuracy of their equipment after the Volkswagen
Jetta they tested showed readings 30 times more than the claimed
pollution rating.
The BMW, though, gave off the exact results they expected.
At the time, the team had no idea why the cars were emitting so much
pollution… “...We didn’t point and say, ‘Volkswagen has a defeat
device’,” Thiruvengadam told Autoblog. ......"

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Tony Blair
introduced the ‘dash for diesel’ in the late 1990s to meet climate
change targets. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol wealthy countries had to
slash emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, by 8
per cent over 15 years.

Like
other leaders, Blair was swayed by the motor industry’s argument that
switching from petrol to diesel would lead to huge drops in greenhouse
gas emissions.It’s
true that diesels emit less CO2 – mostly they are more efficient and go
further on one litre of fuel. However, in the 1990s the industry argued
the average diesel emitted 13 to 17 per cent less CO2, a figure that
turned out to be hugely optimistic. How was the UK persuaded to switch to dirty diesel?

The
2001 Budget overhauled vehicle excise duty and introduced a new banding
system, still in place today. The more CO2 cars emitted, the more
owners had to pay. The system favoured diesel cars which, according to
the manufacturer’s test results, tended to have lower CO2 emissions.
Labour also brought in tax breaks for diesel company cars to encourage
businesses to switch."

The results of that study, which was paid for by the
nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT)
in late 2012 and completed in May 2013, were later corroborated
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California Air
Resources Board (CARB). ......."(We) saw huge discrepancies. There was
one vehicle with 15 to 35 times the emissions levels and another
vehicle with 10 to 20 times the emissions levels."Despite the discrepancies, a fix shouldn't involve major
changes. "It could be something very small," said Carder, who's
the interim director of West Virginia University's Center for
Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions in Morgantown, about
200 miles (320 km) west of Washington in the Appalachian
foothills."It can simply be a change in the fuel injection strategy.
What might be realized is a penalty in fuel economy in order to
get these systems more active, to lower the emissions levels."Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now,
because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a
half ago."

Tuesday, 22 September 2015

Britain
experienced the third largest increase in migrants of any major nation
last year, a new study revealed today as European ministers held a
summit to tackle the refugee crisis. International
migration to the UK in 2014 hit 558,800 - a 24 per cent increase on
2013. Only Israel and the Czech republic saw bigger rises. As
concern over the flows of people across international borders grows,
the OECD think tank also warned that Europe must prepare for 1million
people to claim asylum this year."

Daily Express
Fights have broken out between real and fake Syrians, with many using
stones and bottles to attack one another on migration routes. ........
Disturbing recent figures from the EU reveal that only one in five
migrants are genuinely Syrian, but 90 per cent of those trying to cross
the border claim they are Syrian because they think it is the surest
route to gaining asylum. The Arabic version of Twitter even has an
“expose fake Syrians” hashtag, which is one of the most trending topics
in the war-torn country. The trend has increased fears the
well-trodden migrant route could be exploited by terrorists who pose as
refugees in a bid to make it into Europe and carry out an attack. German police arrested a Moroccan-born jihadist, who had used fake documents to pose as a desperate refugee. The
head of Europe’s border agency Frontex described the abhorrent trend of
buying fake documents as a “windfall” for economic migrants, amid the
revelation dubious markets selling fake Syrian passports have sprung up
across Turkey.
Fabrice Leggeri said: “There are people who are now
in Turkey, buying false Syrian passports because they have obviously
realised that it is a windfall since Syrians get asylum in all member
states in the European Union.."

The EU's Eastern states shocked to lose their sovereignty over borders, just
as southern Europe lost economic sovereignty by joining the euro"

The Home Office has come under fire in a critical report into the country's immigration system.
The Public Accounts Committee found that 50,000 failed asylum seekers
have gone missing in the UK since 2012, while 175,000 are still
awaiting removal from the UK. .....

In addition, a 29,000-strong backlog of unresolved asylum
applications dating back to at least 2007 means a "worrying" 11,000
asylum-seekers have been waiting for at least seven years for an initial
decision on whether they can stay in the country, the report found.
As well as longstanding applications, the department is also
struggling with fresh asylum claims, the PAC report said, with a backlog
of cases awaiting an initial decision jumping 70% to 16,273 in the
first quarter of this year."

A Pakistani identity card in the bushes, a Bangladeshi one in a
cornfield. A torn Iraqi driver's license bearing the photo of a man with
a Saddam-style mustache, another one with a scarfed woman displaying a
shy smile.
Documents scattered only meters from Serbia's border
with Hungary provide evidence that many of the migrants flooding Europe
to escape war or poverty are scrapping their true nationalities and
likely assuming new ones, just as they enter the European Union.
Many
of those travelers believe that using a fake document — or having none
at all — gives them a better of chance of receiving asylum in Germany
and other western European states. That's because the surest route to
asylum is to be a refugee from war and not an economic migrant fleeing
poverty. That fact has led to a huge influx of people claiming to be
Syrian.
Serbian border police say that 90 percent of those
arriving from Macedonia, some 3,000 a day, claim they are Syrian,
although they have no documents to prove it. The so-called Balkan
corridor for the migrant flight starts in Turkey, then goes through
Macedonia and Serbia before entering the European Union in Hungary.
"You
can see that something is fishy when most of those who cross into
Serbia enter January first as the date of their birth," said border
police officer Miroslav Jovic. "Guess that's the first date that comes
to their mind."
The chief of the European Union border agency Frontex said that trafficking in fake Syrian passports has increased.
"A
lot of people enter Turkey with fake Syrian papers, because they know
that they'll get asylum in the EU more easily," Fabrice Leggeri said.
In
Germany, customs authorities have intercepted packages mailed to
Germany containing Syrian passports, both genuine and counterfeit, the
finance ministry said."

The Australian
Tony Abbott got the policy and the politics of Syria right
yesterday. He was a bit slow off the mark at the weekend but he quickly
identified this shortcoming, read the community sentiment ­accurately
and drove government processes to produce a credible policy response. .....In particular, this act of generosity is possible only because the flow
of illegal immigrants by boat to Australia from the north has been
halted. ......But the Australian people want to know that it is their government
that controls Australia’s borders, and that refugees come here in an
orderly way, given that there is no immediate neighbour from which
anyone can legitimately be fleeing persecution to Australia.
In other words, this generous action is possible only because of Abbott’s success in stopping the boats."

Turning back refugee boats saves lives - as Australia found out"The conclusion from the Australian experience is that those who benefit
most from tough border protection are the immigrants who come here
fairly and legally. Strict controls help dampen down xenophobia, and
ensure that decent treatment is given to those seeking the nation’s
hospitality. If only you Poms had not surrendered your sovereignty to
Brussels! " (Spectator, Australia)

NoTricksZone
I’m feeling cynical this evening. Off topic…
How incompetent and clueless are Europe’s leaders?
Well this may be the first time in human history that Europe has chosen not to defend itself against an invasion.
In fact it is even surrealistically welcoming it!
Dear Islamists, you have been dreaming a long time of overrunning Europe, with many of you thinking it will involve
patience and might take some decades, or even a century or two. Well, good news for you – your wait is over! It can
be yours in less than 10 years! It’s for real. Tens of thousands have already done it.
Why now? Never have European leaders been so incompetent, naïve, and so generous. They are welcoming you with open
arms, gifts, food, money, free healthcare and warm places to stay. They want to show the whole world how good and
moral they are – because they are suffering from a guilt trip of some strange sort."
.....And there is nothing that will be done about it. European leaders, by allowing a totally uncontrolled mass immigration across their borders, have thrown the national security of their citizens overboard. These fools don’t seem to realize it, but the first target of terrorists is often the state itself. There’s no way of knowing how many terrorists and fighters are embedded among the refugees. This is negligence of the worst kind."

Reuters
As the worst
refugee crisis since World War Two forces Europe to break down hurdles
and accept hundreds of thousands of migrants, Japan, which took in just
11 asylum seekers last year, is looking to clamp down even further.Measures
including deporting failed applicants, curbs on repeat applications and
pre-screening of new asylum seekers are being considered as part of
changes to the country's immigration system, an official said on
Wednesday.If implemented, the
changes would make Japan an even harder-to-reach destination, activists
say. The country is already one of the developed world's least welcoming
countries for refugees, accepting 11 of a record 5,000 asylum seekers
in 2014."

Spectator
Of all the irresponsible decisions taken in recent years by European
politicians, few will cause as much human misery as Angela Merkel’s plan
to welcome Syrian refugees to Germany. Hailed as enlightened moral
leadership, it is in fact the result of panic and muddled thinking. Her
pronouncements will lure thousands more into the hands of unscrupulous
people-traffickers. Her insistence that the rest of the continent should
share the burden will add political instability to the mix. Merkel has
made a dire situation worse. ......Merkel’s actions, now, will be hard to correct: her words cannot be
unsaid. She has exacerbated a problem that will be with us for years,
perhaps decades. More than 40 per cent of those who applied for asylum
in Germany in the first half of this year came from the former
Yugoslavia; the last of its wars ended 14 years ago. Handling all of
this correctly will require true statesmanship, which means thinking
through consequences. Merkel is failing that test spectacularly. "

Telegraph
The refugees refused to register with Danish authorities, which
would mean having to apply for asylum in Denmark or returning to
Germany, preferring instead to seek asylum in Sweden, where asylum
conditions are more generous.
Sweden, one of many European
countries struggling with the worst migration crisis since World War II,
has become a top EU destination for refugees by issuing permanent
residency to all Syrian asylum seekers."

Monday, 7 September 2015

Daily MailIt has just been revealed that the number
of people who were born abroad and are now living in Britain has hit a
staggering 8.3 million. That’s almost exactly the population of London, our capital city.

While we
remain in the EU and chained to the pernicious Human Rights Act (another
broken Tory promise), we are powerless to prevent mass immigration,
both from within and without Europe.

It’s
pointless putting forward any proposals to stem the human tide and
protect our borders, since the political will simply doesn’t exist.

Donald
Trump, the U.S. presidential candidate, may be a rabble-rousing circus
act, but he is surely correct when he says a country which won’t secure
its borders isn’t a country at all.

The 8.3 million already here are only those we know about. How many are here illegally?

The Government can’t, or more likely won’t, say.

But
getting on for 15 years ago, the then Commissioner of the Met told me
he reckoned there were at least 300,000 people living in London the
police knew nothing about.

CW
It’s plain that many if not most now camped out in Budapest and Kos
and Calais are not ‘refugees’ or ’asylum seekers’. Because of the EU’s
open borders, no one seems to have a clue about their point of origin or
their reasons for being here.
The suspicion is that a high proportion are economic migrants;
pictures suggest they are mostly male and they are desperately trying to
queue jump in order to get what they want.
This is potentially worrying because it suggests the beginnings of
the complete disintegration of border controls. The EU’s ‘free movement’
principle has seemingly transmuted into a total free-for-all."

Friday, 4 September 2015

Which brings
us back to the child’s corpse on the beach in Turkey. I repeat, it’s
awful. Heartbreaking. But it’s not our fault, and it’s not our
responsibility, however compassionate we might feel.

The father told the Mail that the family were fleeing the war in Syria when the dinghy capsized.

Miraculously, he survived, although he couldn’t save his wife and two children.

But
here’s what puzzles me. They’d been living in Turkey for the past year.
So why didn’t he apply for asylum there? After all, surely culturally
Syria has more in common with Turkey, another Muslim country, than with
Tunbridge Wells or Trondheim.

We’re
also told that he’s a Kurd. So why didn’t he move to Kurdistan? Who
knows? And that’s just the point. No one knows anything for sure.

Similarly,
the shocking death of a child should never be exploited just because
media tarts and ‘liberal’ luvvies such as Jackboots Jacqui and the
absurd Emma Thompson can feel good about themselves.

Daily MailThe barber had paid people smugglers £2,900 over the course of three attempts to reach Greece from a refugee camp in Turkey."

OPINION: This man is responsible for the deaths of his wife and children. He took them from a safe place - Turkey - and placed them at great risk using people traffickers and THEY paid with their lives.

From the comments:

"Ok it's time all EU countries return anyone that comes by boat! Let them
know if they do they will be refused entry full stop! Then this would
stop the trafficking and the drowning,"

"These children and their parents left the safe haven of Turkey and in
the Father's own words undertook a hazardous journey on an unsuitable
boat on rough seas. Turkey is not an island, it has land borders with
European countries, just not very attractive countries to migrants.
Migrants are dying because when they are safe from ISIS/war/famine etc,
they choose to head for a 'prosperous' life in Western Europe."

"Cameron, would you enlighten us as to where the UK is going to find the
'thousands of houses' needed to accommodate the 'thousands of
refugees/economic migrants' that you have agreed to take? What about
their health care, school places for their children and of course
Benefits for the whole bunch? Where are the jobs? We can't house,
provide adequate healthcare & schooling for our own people. As for
jobs, what a laugh - the influx of 'free movement' workers has taken
care of that! What's the long-term plan, I'm sure we'd all like to
know! "

"Very sad story, but this country had its own problems, 50,000 children
on the at risk register in Britain today. So before the lefty tree
huggers invite every refugee into the UK, I would suggest we fix our own
mess first."

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

What, then,
is the solution? First, Schengen needs to go. The Euro-fanatics have
done enough damage in their pursuit of political integration.

The
restoration of sovereign borders would mean the authorities of each
country no longer had an incentive to wave migrants through, knowing
they would become someone else’s responsibility.

Second,
we need to follow Australia’s example. Faced with a surge of seaborne
migration, it towed ships to an island and processed claims offshore.

Since then, there has not been a single death through drowning and far fewer people attempt the journey.

To
emulate Australia, though, we would have to stop interpreting the 1951
Refugee Convention in a way that obliges us to allow every asylum-seeker
to remain in the EU while their claim is assessed.

That
charter was designed in a very different age. Its authors were
understandably haunted by the memory of the Jewish refugees from Nazi
Germany in the 1930s who had been turned away from safe countries.

They
could not have dreamed of an era of cheap travel, when perhaps two
billion people could theoretically claim to be victims of oppression.

To do what
the Australians have done, the EU would have to abandon a great many
accords, starting with its Charter of Fundamental Rights.

That,
though, is unlikely to happen. So if Britain wants to control its
borders, it will have to do so unilaterally, by leaving the EU.

Ministers are tying themselves in knots trying to avoid this conclusion.

But
all the schemes they propose – tightening benefits, requiring evidence
of a job – fail to address the huge, clunking fact that, as long as we
are in the EU, we cannot control who settles here or in what numbers.

Eventually,
our hand may be forced. With no let-up in the numbers reaching Italy
across the Mediterranean, there will come a point when the Rome
government, tired of carrying the burden for other EU states, gives
identity documents to all those migrants who want to move on and settle
in Germany or Britain or Sweden.

The only question is whether this moment comes before or after Britain’s referendum.

If it comes before, no force on Earth will persuade people to remain in.

If it comes after we’ve voted to stay, it will be too late to change our minds."